


Unopened

by melancholy_aries



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Gen, Imported from FFN with minor edits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:16:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29863503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melancholy_aries/pseuds/melancholy_aries
Summary: Kakashi crumpled the clumsy, unsophisticated note in his fist and let it fall to the floor. He left the way he came, not bothering to shut the window after him in a fit of pettiness—he hoped Sakura woke up with a spider on her face.One-shot wherein Kakashi is confronted by failure.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Unopened

If Hatake Kakashi were anything, he was imperturbable. Nothing got to him anymore—not death, not violence, and definitely not emotions. This was a point of pride for him.

Yet, here he was, perplexingly afraid of a piece of paper: an unopened envelope, yellowed and faded, addressed to him. He recognized the writing as Sakura's, and he had been avoiding it for over an hour.

He hadn't been in contact with Sakura for months; he hadn't even thought of her. She had approached him months ago to let him know that he would no longer be her sensei. He had simply asked her who would be taking her on, and she had cooly replied that she couldn't tell him that. He had shrugged, wished her luck, and returned to his book.

Today, while wrestling with the ninken, they had knocked over his bookshelf. While restoring his precious _Icha Icha_ volumes to their rightful places, he found the envelope behind the bookcase, covered in dust. His name in her tiny, child-like scrawl had twisted his gut for some reason he couldn't fathom. 

Scoffing at himself, he ripped open the envelope. The note inside was a surprising, red-hot dagger to his cold, unfeeling heart. He hadn't felt pain—or anything else—like this in decades, and he didn't fucking like it.

_(::)(::)(::)_

_Dear Kakashi-sensei,_

_Thank you for teaching me what it means to be on a team. I promise I will never abandon my comrades. Even though it hurt, I am grateful that you were honest with me about my faults. I won't let you down again, Kakashi-sensei._

_Your Student,_

_Haruno Sakura_

_(::)(::)(::)_

It was such a simple note. There was no reason Kakashi should feel like he did: crushed, ashamed, and...like scum.

Kakashi brushed off these inexplicable feelings for a few hours, but they eventually returned and refused to be ignored.

He knew as soon as he'd read the first line that he was not, and never had been, worthy of the title 'sensei,' least of all when it came to Sakura. He wanted to excuse his lack of attentiveness to her and to her training because of her strong intellect, her observant nature, and her natural ability with chakra manipulation. She didn't need as much attention as the other two.

Kakashi sighed, pressed his palms against his eyes, and asked himself a question he'd never asked before: What the fuck was wrong with him?

His walls tried to go up, tried to protect him from the answer, but something overrode their directive.

He couldn't possibly be dumber if he tried. Sakura had needed his guidance just as much as Naruto and Sasuke. More, in some ways. She had needed a sensei, and she had been grateful to have his sorry-ass...at least, at first.

For the first time, Kakashi wondered about her new sensei: Man or woman? Did Kakashi know them? What kind of team?

Had Sakura been serious when she said that she couldn't tell him who her new sensei was, or had she just been trying to get a response from him, some sign that showed that he cared that she was leaving, that he cared where she was going?

Kakashi pushed aside these curiosities for another few hours—opting to soak in bitter resentment at this unwanted self-reflection—but, again, was overtaken by the imperative to find out.

He grudgingly left his apartment, his anger and irritation growing as he got closer and closer to the Haruno home.

The front porch light was on, and several lights inside. Instead of knocking, he jumped silently up to the window he knew belonged to Sakura. He gently lifted the window into her lighted room, quickly determining that she wasn't there. He focused carefully to sense if she was in the house, but he couldn't feel her chakra at all. She must have gone out and forgot to turn off her light.

_Tch. Irresponsible as always._

Well, since he was already here...

Kakashi carelessly, but quietly, rifled through Sakura's things, more irritated than ever now that Sakura wasn't here to just answer his questions so that he could go back to his apartment and his porn.

He found nothing of what he'd expected of a girl like her. No posters of Sasuke, no dartboards with Naruto's face on it, no books on dieting. Her room had no personality at all, actually. Even her bookshelf was full of boring, unremarkable titles. Despite his lack of attention, Kakashi knew that Sakura wasn't this dull. He had al least expected to find some weapons hanging from the wall—she'd always been partial to shuriken, just like him.

Dammit. Was that an attempt to mimic him? To become more like him? To get him to pay attention to her?

Kakashi came across the envelope at the back of a drawer in Sakura's desk. It was addressed to him. Her handwriting had improved since the last note. The envelope looked a little worn, like she had run her fingers over it many times, debating whether or not to send it. It was sealed, and for a moment, Kakashi told himself to just leave it. His sense of survival was telling him to run, to just forget Sakura all together. It was a strong temptation, but he broke the seal anyway.

He fucking should have burned the whole damn thing.

_(::)(::)(::)_

_Kakashi-san,_

_Learning from you was an odd, painful, and often confusing experience. You said all the right words, but you rarely lived up to them. Your words taught me how to be part of a team, taught me that abandoning them would make me scum. Your actions toward us, and toward your own comrades, taught me the opposite. I just thought that I was too dumb to know how they fit together._

_I finally realized that wasn't the case. It only took me three years. I thought I could help you, I tried to be less of a burden. I started training with Tsunade-sama, but the less I relied on you, the more you seemed to resent me when I did need you. You didn't even care enough to correct me anymore, and then you didn't care enough to show up to training at all, let alone four hours late._

_You taught me more than you can imagine—mostly because you weren't paying attention. I was so stressed about accepting a new sensei because I thought it would mean abandoning you. But, how could I abandon someone who had already abandoned me in favor of a living grave?_

_I won't insult you by trying to psychoanalyze you. I don't know your feelings any more than you know mine. But, I watch you. I've always watched you. You've only gotten worse since Sasuke deserted and Naruto left with Jiraiya-sama. Like you're lost or something. I hope you find what you're looking for._

_Take care of yourself,_

_Haruno Sakura_

__(::)(::)(::)_ _

Kakashi crumpled the clumsy, unsophisticated note in his fist and let it fall to the floor. He left the way he came, not bothering to shut the window in a fit of pettiness—he hoped Sakura woke up with a spider on her face.

As he made his way along the rooftop pathways, his anger and indignation soared. Even through those mind-clouding emotions, though, he was conscious of the fact that he felt more alive and passionate than he had in years.

Still, how dare that infantile teenybopper call him a hypocrite?!

Just because he always ducked out on paying the bill, and tricked Iruka-sensei into doing all his work for him, and lied to everyone, and never taught Sakura a damn thing—

This time, Kakashi's walls went up without opposition.

None of those things made him a bad team player, and none of those things overshadowed the fact that he was always there to save his genin.

Just because Sasuke was too far gone, and Naruto too knuckle-headed, and Sakura too infatuated, for Kakashi to teach them to save themselves did not make him a bad sensei!

Kakashi groaned as he was plagued with more questions that he had never asked himself, and that he didn't want to ask now: _was_ he a bad sensei? Was it just bad luck that he'd ended up with the genin he did? Had he really stopped caring about Sakura? Had he _ever_ cared about Sakura?

Introspection was not one of Kakashi's strong suits. In fact, he actively resisted the offensive mindset, one of the few things he ever did actively. It incensed him further that he was struggling to overcome it tonight, incensed him that Useless-Sakura—

 _You really are a fucking bastard,_ that quiet voice that had been overpowered by his indignation managed to get through.

—had planted this weed in his mind. He knew instinctively that if he pursued the answers to these questions, pursued the sources of his anger, his life would have to change. He didn't know how it would change, and he was sure that it would be unpleasant and exhausting.

Kakashi landed silently on his balcony then stepped through his sliding glass window and into his studio apartment. The place suddenly seemed too small, too dusty, too dark and unwelcoming. The air was stale and stifling, and everything was covered in dust and dirt—kind of like how he imagined a coffin to be.

Kakashi snarled at his thoughts and chucked his hitai-ate across the room. He would not be made to feel uncomfortable in his own home because some fourteen-year-old had her feeling hurt by his teaching methods. Kakashi shook his head at the girl's assessment of him, at her sad attempts to blame him for her mediocrity. He couldn't believe he had almost fallen for her guilt-trip.

_Tch._

Kakashi grabbed a copy of _Icha Icha_ and flopped down on his bed.

 _A living grave_.

What the fuck did Haruno Sakura know, anyway?


End file.
